An Impulse / Action (Robbie Coburn)

Woodstock- struck by winter
a cold wind breaks up the sky. cold
/makes
decisions (ending)
a shade of frost descended on the grasses. to the west
a light beyond the treesthis pasture, seeded by blood before all else
becomes more desolate, further cleared of any life
over the paddocks
the land, sub-divisions to form fence lines, lands for
farmers and trainers of dogsdie in winter
an asphalt road risesto carry bodies free
to the colder cities, barricaded by concrete structures,
the tin of our roof a shadow left in the past
father and mother
the voice of dirt slides so easily beneath your eyes
and how? our skulls
empty/ would turn together into darkness.the farm cleared away
to place more houses
(yet I’m imprisoned in this skin)aged beyond a crimson sun-the open fields trapping paths
clouds sounding above the opening of winter
youth will have destroyed us, first, stretching for acres to reclaim
that stolen joy, thinning by the headlong yards
of greyhounds
this land that speaks nothingof of forefathers
buried heritage/a sadness unspoken
in hands gripped to the shedsleaving rurality
then, dreamt we could climb through the trees
enter a world beyond
a century ago land free of all but farmsdirt roads centering the district diverged into corners of earth
an isolation forcing action, at the foot of the alleyway
the rains have dampened the grasses into
pools
ofmud
our land, brothers
no man understands
consuminginternal internal decay such as this
without love- death suddenly brothers- and too young for it?
senselessness/ clearing the empty paddocksviewed from the empty weatherboard house-
setting within the flesh a quietness
screaming to break the body
a reason perhaps for blood/
stemming blades of grass
by my bedroom window.(both this morning, beyond)
an impulse, thenaction.

Ground is Martin Langford’s latest book and it features on its cover a black-and-white photograph of cloud. In choosing this clever image, Puncher & Wattmann’s cover designer Matthew Holt is ... Read More